'you're the cunt, donut'

Ocular Lab Inc.

31 Pearson St., West Brunswick 

opens 12 Dec 3-5pm 

continues 13, 19, 20 Dec !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

perhaps the most fucked thing about the world, is the fucked-ness of those trying to fix-it-up. but these are both kinda awesome. gay hat gay doof. x

http://www.threethousand.com.au/look/tastes-self/

STUDIO'S  AVAILABLE

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• Mattthew, sorry to treat the as my secretatryyy but. If yuo fresh litle pupils just popping out into the art would like little tadddies into a muddie pudddle neeed an inspiring setting to create it would be a delight if you could encourage them in teh Kerr St direction. 'CHeap n' cheerful' thats our motto x
  
• 
  
• $160 per month 
  
• $160 bond
  

I finally said Hi! to Mirka on my last day at swan st, she asked if I was a painter I said yes (pffffft!) and if I had a studio at home I said no etc. She said*** Tres Bein*** (awsome! hilary!) she said a mistake is a wonderful thing, when you accidently slide the brush on canvas ( I imagined her turning to pick up a cup o tea or vino in a cluttered pit o painting, but I thinking mashing with a picture of Margaret Olley I have seen, also I miss the Margaret Prestons at NGA) this is a wonderful thing, she said turner had said it. (As romantic as this sounds, its still good, I want all my paintings to be side ways, like I wasn't there looking at it, its not personal vision, but it is, but just not even near the height of passion or crisis, its way after when you can retell the story as a gag, entertaining missery, dry as, its slippery, its not poetic accident or giving away self determination to chance, but just off centre, not artist as silo, its a nod to self awareness and the best of Po-Mo and Modernisssyism) I was a bit weird from having not eaten and had my mind on the mission of moving, I wanted it to go better i wanted to become her assistant come companion, but she sort of fobbed me off in the end and I'd run outta converssion puff, because she doesn't need it! And this is very cool, she doesn't need younger fans/faux friends to mix her tints or hand her shit and pump her up on praise, fuck that gas, she's just damn fine with her life and not needy, It is I who is theee idiot. I've been looking at her lop sided mural in the cafe all this time imagining her to want to swaddle into her life any proteeejjjaa she could find, but she is not so doey, nor run out of all the things to paint or do. You can be older but not softy. This is a good old lesson. I wanna bee woman ****comme ca****.

*tastes self*

This type of work is a play between signs and form - the signs are the lost substances of a selection of objects and images, real things made into weightless surface effects; and the form, the arrangement of selections that creates some newer, flatter, smoother meaning from them. It’s a complex game of sensation and feeling, on the one side melancholy, on the other light. 

The playfulness of the interaction of these elements is animated by a something like a sexual tension between viewer and work – it gathers the selected material into erogenous zones where meanings are concentrated, or separates them out where imaginative input from the viewer is required. If you find yourself liking it, coming up with a description to communicate this feeling might make you want to run your words together in breathless, advertorial style, as if trying to mimic the heightened concentration of the flow of associations. If you don’t, it’s easy enough to dismiss the selections as ‘meaningless’, and the work as a collection of random junk.

With Tastes Self the associations take on a humanoid form – sometimes male, when it’s reminiscing over gay men’s classifieds or thinking about Corinthian columns, and sometimes female, a bit obsessed with handwash and the Garnier Fructis range, forgetting that it has left its lube lying around. But Smith and Vivian also put the work in a rural setting, a spacious society of animals and machinery. Being uninhibited, kitty litter, multi-coloured fish-tank gravel and possum shit become just as valuable decorations as glossy photos advertising the latest tractors and harvesters, or a beautiful R.M. Williams model in a ten-gallon hat, partly obscuring the view of a four-wheel farm bike. 

In the rarer moments where material elements have been physically altered in some way, not just picked off the shelf and put in position, for example, when a row of dishwashing sponges has been glued together, or an empty Perrier bottle is given a lick of pink paint, these additions look more like make-up than construction. The overall effect is that the work takes part in a beauty competition with and against itself – a flaying, bucolic fantasy that is seductive because of its narcissism, making you want to uncritically affirm that assemblage is the form of art and desire for a networked world. 

Michael Ascroft.

*tastes self* by Alex and I is open dis Sat from 12-5. Michael A. has written a thing about it that is avail at TCB. Jim snd Dan are on at TCB. it good. Show at William Mora good at moment. John Kelly at Niagra should punch himself in the nose, twice. Lucien can draw I guess, doubled sided works in hinged frames keeewl. I regret that I will leave swan street having never had the guts to say hello to Mirka Mora. oh well. x

Maybe my blog is a weird place to ask for a place to live. 

But I need one, do you have one? 

tonight

Type:	Music/Arts - Jam Session
Network:	Global

Start Time:	Friday, October 23, 2009 at 6:00pm
End Time:	Saturday, October 24, 2009 at 1:00am
Location:	Hell Gallery
Street:	5a Railway Place
City/Town:	Richmond, Australia
	View Map

Description

"Vivian and Smith's show is about shit youf influences, and how good they are. The two met at smith's first Melbourne exhibition Whoops Kibbutz, at Utopian Slumps, Vivian introduced himself and they got talking about growing up in the Riverina, they were interrupted, Vivian said 'that's okkkaaaayyyy were just having a rural bitch'. *Tastes Self* is about the ripped bod under a rip-curl T-shirt, coloured in with a rotten country road. the something something something and the something." Vivian and Smith, 2010

there is a better one than the one above of eva standing in the studio in her socks blows up an silly long sausage cock phallus balloon. undercut by that same cheeky grin. dirty innocent good. below me in my Elders shearers singlet at studes...

dude sitting on a toilet.
stuff found on a bit o' paper

'doing work want to be a homo. way to a new world without divisions where social group on gropu struggles are a big der and over. its not like you don't want to not grow up get married and have kids. but you wanna let it slip out your own way. homo. not tidy up. daggy egalitarian disco grouse. sex is sweeeeeeeet and not dominating. no more fighting friends. its the only group i wan to belong to - local*slippery*nice.'

off to tcb to give Grestest Hits ma stoopid cd. 

CROSS COLOURING
An exchange between Gambia Castle (NZ) / Joint Hassles (MEL)
Curated by Harriet Kate Morgan and Sarah Hopkinson
Opening Friday 18 September, Hell gallery, 6 til late
September 19 – October 10, 2009

Josh Petherick / Alex Vivian / Jess Lucas / Kate Smith / Harriet K Morgan / Christopher LG Hill / Lane Cormick / Rob McHaffie / Helen Johnson / Kain Picken / Nick Selenitsch / Sean Bailey / James Deutsher / Dan Arps / Nick Austin / Andrew Barber / Fiona Connor / Simon Denny / Daniel Malone / Tahi Moore / Kate Newby / Tao Wells

spaces avail at Kerr st. two at $160, one space $120. come along now lady.

Eco-jaded
'we are all fucked' Alex baker. or fucked up or thinking about fucking. snorting pigs. it makes me feel so free. Fatalism is freedom. Freedom is a corny word but I still wants is. But not just 'Freedom', freedom to do, freedom to say.I guess I'm trying to say Murphys law will always win, so I gonna stay cheap and cheerful and getting on wid it. The fuckedness is only encouraging.

xo empty ing my giant diaframe on the comunity garden. nipping some parsley for my eggs xo

sweeeeet little gran a poos. sick with flu a woos. tied her hair up a woos to go to the hairdressser a woos. so stubborn didn't tell she was sick a wooos. had piggy flu a woos. and still lives. so vain so hair. still don't know her agey wooo wooos. studied ikebana a wooo wooos. has mums year twelve pottery out a woo woos. kiss kiss xx

http://www.utopianslumps.org/previous_exhibitions.php?viewShow=33

peta! will look into it for you, the remains are with mel at utopian so I dunno. will get on to courier next week, I keep wanting to paint on pipi/yayoi, but I guess that's imorallle cause you already paid yo clams. Today I'm doing a thing for a greatest hits publication for TCB soon. sean has a show there next week. wish yo could of been here for his release the other soir, was swell. Alex and I are are on it, but space is already fully, we have two week install, so maybe we should sit on our hands till then. There is a gambia castle swap comming up-Harriet kate is organising it an wrote a good thing. the drawing up there is from the joint hassles poster show. Egon schiele , no glove no love , rub. will get pip to you soon pup. xx

Up on the wall at Utopian Slumps and in a stacky on the floor at Sutton

rectangular, no triangular

posting off a copy of 'Heavan and Earth' to the farm. will make for some interesting discussion when I go home I bet. I like Lisa and Sam's show at Hell, I like that they went little, less gawdy, Greatist Hits video of some shearer install dude putting up there work is hell swell. Install dudes, gangs of shearers. Jock is in QLD managing a portfolio of Cattle properties. Beff is going 'ganbusters' he says. Agri-business hey? I wanna go up and get stoned with beef giants sons. I am pretty stuck into my ideas of the old money high life, polo and drugs please. Art does seem to ignore sex. I have stolen this idea, because I think it's a good one. Fiction is up in it, but not exhibitions. Dirty shows would be nice. I heart the white-cube, turns things into art, don't like sight-specific, it's a bit daggy, whiter than white thanks. didn't like Cockatoo Island, nothing in that show really dealt with that space, just borrowed its cred, forget history, forget local and forget community that feeds into whitey patriotic, get Liberal, don't join a team, not even the anarchists, the world will obnly fix up perhaps if we are allowd to not join teams, that we don't have to homogonise to sought out the environment, but that environmental decisions be a system infastructure underneath to just get the hell on with he we be over the top. Perhaps 'Heavan and Earth' has something, of course we will be wiped out one day, and so we should, hey why not, perhaps 'saving the earth' doesn't have to be about saving our own arses but more about not being jerks hey, there is something so consumer about how we are going about it. Just remember, I'm not the phoney your the phoney, jerk xx

I should write cause you look and ther is nothing new, I'm a bit drunk, have been out with mum and dad, am listening to Gugg think they have secret track, really want to  send dad to listen to matt griffin at ACCA, i think i just latched onto the bits that are about me. everytime he says my dad, dads farm i LISTEN, food hey, my vegan friends say Singer is a fuck. 

dan's grandma from a nursing home at byron bay said, dan be a peacenick, war sux

Hi Kato,
That looks familiar!!!
Can you act like old money???
Reminds me of Grandma somehow!!
Are you excited about your exhib!! Hope the installing goes well - looking forward to seeing it & you - think it will be that week of 4th May - more later.
Just got to help Dad move out the back paddock.
Love you, Mum

Hey Bill! 

!Come see some shit paintings!

can't you act like old money

by kate smith

Opens Wed 22 Apr 6-8pm

22 Apr - 9 May 2009

its a play off between creating and not making. The counterweight is more important. are artifacts to ideas o k. there in lies the rub. 

ugg lee old thingg

dudes in training

hey there is a studio space free at Kerr Street if anyone needs an awsome one. xx

po mo bo ho

I have been reading a bio on Francis Bacon. Not sure why. Cause it was on the studio floor and I was busting to read. It's called Anatomy of An Enigma. I can't even laugh, jesus christo! But he's growing on me, I love his dirty fagness, his 1930's ness, sado-boho queen......"Bacon certainly made a lasting habit of 1930's Bohemianism. Even as an old man, he would lather his face for shaving with an old sock if he had no brush to hand". I must be Bohemian after all. Trying to locate the next show around a certain time frame, I want all the times, today its can be the 30's, I think all of bo-ho modernism is up for grabs....I grabs... 

In between Anais Nin, found this

we keeps talking about irony...maybe I have had enough of that? But is the peak of it (the prick of it) or the everyday of it, the sunday newspaper magazine article on it ( i stole that idea) where it ends up something like this...

::::: The apartment is full of furnishings I find individually ugly - silver candelabra, tables with nooks for trailing flowers, enormous mulberry satin poufs, rococo objects, things full of chic, collected with snobbish playfulness, as if to say, 'We can make fun of everything created by fashion, we are above it all.'

everything is touched with aristocratic impudence::::: 

this is not enough, but a start. 

little tip dump stuff

Doing a twelve day working week. I think it's making me a bit gushy... It's good too. I feel efficent like I'm saving for something. And I am saving to cover rents and pay for my show. Which is now today starting to scare the bejesssus outta me. Not scare, well yes scare. I went to texticles (good) the other night and realised that space aint as little as I thought, perhaps I am not just going to be able to sneeze it out over a weekend!! and feel a bit flaky, at openings an stuff I'm the same saying """ Yeah I have a show comming up in april at TCB"" blargggggggggg cause cause I feel like I talk talk but don't do do. I keep thinking "privacy!". I know I feel like a liar cause I have been away from the studio for all these days, and The show so far is a few things I like on the floor. This show is going to be vaguer and kinda more 'beyond me' to exlain than usual perhaps.

Last year was very easy. I just need time at the studio coal face and it will solve.

I want to thank SHANKS! the peps who do blog, It can feel indulgent, it is, but reading honest stuff makes me feel closer to being in the studio. I just felt a bit 'believed in' last year and now I could trippppp/disappoint.*cry cry*

I wrang my brother and asked him to take a photo of the farm tip and send it too me. I was walking out to see it while home for xmas and collecting scraps like a little one, bring them back to my room that has been repainted, bieged out, by my mum and all my old trinkets, rocks and posters are gone. I am allowed to decorate again. But thats weird like pretending I am fourteen again. It was pre boarding school shrine.

The tip, has the faux brick cladding from my gran's house in it, like here house has been exploded into it. I would walk out and go 'hey life is a destructive thing and that's ok n' difficult'. I am always trying to come up with the summary of freaking everything! like the life is a uni lecture to summarise. But you can't, and that's good. Means there is lots to be done. The tip is a crack/ gutter in the creek with cheeky stuff poked into it.

Bro wouldn't take the photo, he said 'it shouldn't exist'.

SYDNEYtown

snakeoil
obsessssed with Alex Vivians Farking-beautiful smoodgy hangover at Neon Parc.

going through old diaries.
old MANIFESTO
...The farm is sawn outta optimism. All the inherited paintings are shit n muddy. Except for the the Parriultcha. Mum keeps asking me to get it valued.I can't get myself to follow that up. Mum is good at farm art rustica, poly pipe, wreaths, rust, rocks, she paints everthing black. This is typical, but everything is so brute macho and oversized its good.
Ripped up old lino that was over 50's womens weekleys.
There were articles about when plastic was invented. Plastic was awesome future. Snake oil to a po-mo hangover.

commune

being back at the farm for christmas was brat. I was petulant. I was 14. but kinda St Francis of a c c. getting up walking and listening to Nirvana, thinking about the grunge's take at Nature! driving through Wagga, noticing all the Co-operative, things supermarkets, farm supply business, being close to the farms but far from the city hippies, hippies does that word even count anymore, reading southern gothic, Carson McCullers the 'heart is a lonely hunter' thinking bout rural socialism. The National party, a weird mix of socialism and free-trade, romanticism and patriotism. We wanna make all the money, we like rich, but we wanna trades as Co-Ops, and but when we are poors support us cause we are the guts, balls and soul of the nation. Towns being put to sleep, having the fake water stopped, land wont sell. The grapes of wroth. It always feels like its coming to a head, coming to the break out there, that things can't move beyond this part and its gonna bust or revolt. But it don't. 

To tunes, being angst and away from Melbourne makes what I can do when I get back so freaking possible! I spent the first bit of 2009 riding in the back of a car, I pulled up my hood and promised and promised, good ones not melancholy ones to come back and make better art about all I am confused about. I am surprised that I am thinking about these things, but I like thinking about human solutions to stuff and ourselves, But then the determination causes trying. Trying to hard. Banging up a manafesto! this trying is poetry and not like making. If i just gets the freak on with it, it will all be there. Those things are only base. But i thinks it will be ok, cause I've noticed. Over earnestness, failure.

some one thinks bill donovan is me. its not true ! he is real and not me. living in the US and teaching. we got to be friends cause I wanted to quote his friend dan attoe in whoops kibbutz. x

so the profile picture isnt really me. its chad morgan. my dad always goes on about him. buck teeth. ha ha. i looked up his lyrics sooo racist. but good for me me cause i like the sticky spots. I am looking at a pearl jam cover. I am drunk and thinking the discuss in art in australia was good and  surprising. my friend sweetly sends me all the mags for free. maybe she thinks i need to get smart. x bless her. anyway i left art in aust last. but it had the best interview. and I heart alex baker for saying authenticity is racist. freaking banging and what i am thinink about. heart thazt. xx

chuckles 2008

your dead meat new space x

x dear pedro almodovar thankyou for reminding me we a are all useless cool idiots x

Rauschenberg  *if you are dealing with multiplicity, variation and inclusion as your content, then any feeling of complete consistency or sameness is a violation of that attitude. I had to try consciously to do a work that would imply the kind of richness and complexity I saw around me*

commune

'Comedy is crazy V's conservative' from Informal Rituals at TCB this year

Fairweather didn't need us

keith was perhaps an arsehole

Balla: frame

bit worried about my lack of scepticism at the moment. Perhaps its a plateau on to something new. New sincere? I keep thinking about that article in the last Un mag about new sincerity, it kinda endeared me to what Melbourne art is like and what I wasn't liking about mine. Pretty scared of irony or my own Po-Mo-ness at the moment. But not totally willing to back expression n sharing. Maybe the lack of wit is about making new friends. About not impressing new acquaintances. Maybe its failing a few things. And it could also be total disbelief instead. Total go away tooouuufffoussand and eight, I want two o o nine cause I am bored. I'm gonna do 200009 paintings till this ssucker is over.  

*when sitting on the floor cutttting up plastics*for their colours*issss still the best*this art thing wont be over soon*and is still angst at core

look at neon parc projects "i dig your voo doo"

!artist statement!
Yeah ! it's really mean with no stuff sometimes, just words, I heart words, or *My Art* is messy, making things grotty like they have gone through time. time. making "your rooms a brothel! ". The last bastiogggne of freedom n anarcky, The World is so square. Square. I like having lots of different mediums and not being very good at any of them. and groups of materials too, wood with plastic is important, it like the crux (crotch) of the problem n world n human beings. I really like painting becasue I am awful at it ! I make art about art becasue I heart art and have hung out with it so long its become my personal life too ! I make art about comming from a farm *cry cry* and going to university and going overseas and once was a hippie and being a white kid , a white daughter *cry cry*!

Hi Kato,
How are you, just wondering if you have been successful with a seat home on Xmas eve - certainly hope so.
Nothing very much happening here - Dad busy spraying grasshoppers - havn't taken to the wing yet but lots coming out of the Bethungra Hills apparently where they laid in the hard ground in Autumn.
Did you back the winner yesterday???
Love u Mum

drawing and priiiint gift show at NG massbbbive V.
Peter Robinson book 1999
oil and oilstick on cardboard

words include

'out getting fags

Boy am I scared hey

our place (over a schwazztisssticckerrr )

missionary position I'd rather fuck you

100%pure

fish + chips '


I heart that missionary position one, if you got off the frames of Margaret P's kookaburras or Ian fairweather drawing and mount boards this show would float now, heaps contemporary.

are these some things wanted. To be included. To be included so much that your left out a bit and famous. Solo.

Maybe boys are included more often and end up being loners and famous more. What about the boys who feel left out, they are famous for feeling left out. But what do ladies do when they feel left out. They do all girl group shows. They work at community and not loners. this the elephant in the room sometimes become curatorial, the joiner, the habit of the show. In the community, is it ok to crit the work, or is the nobleness of the action to right to point out the crap. Does it all become shit because its being filtered through the elephant in the room. It seems to hurt some boys feelings. hetro. Hamish and Andy were outside my house yesterday. Hamish and Andy are attractive, not hotties, but attractive cause I like a couple of dudes cracking jokes, not that Hamish and Andy have the best jokes, but they fit that mould, the high school mould, I reckon the mould that helps girls get left out, but I am still attracted to it. I kinda want to be included in it, if we were at a party I'd probably try and hang some shit on them. I've been training for this since year seven maths. The jokers get cool and are included so much that they are left out and a bit famous, they are dude soloists and not a community. Serious ones can do it to, but I think the jokers are winning. Rebel Wilson is a girl joker. I wish her heaps well cause i schhoooolllleeed with her and she did some magic tricks for my mum and dad one time. But girls seem to have to crack jokes different. maybe.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>I wrote the stuff above before girls girls girls opened. I sat the show Friday and it just became a show with work. I didn't really see the elephant in the room anymore. But did answer a couple of questions about it. on opening night some one said to me 'I should have been in that show' even all girls leaves out.

brown Id holiday.

may anarchy remain, this is how I think about Joint Hassles. this photo looks like angry freedom.

It was good, I want to shake Lane's hand, man to man.

Mr. and Mrs. Lindsay and Denise Smith
request the honor of your presence
at the marriage of their daughter
Kate Smith
To most of, but not all of
Mr. Rodney Graham
Wednesday, the ninth of September
Two thousand and eight
at six o'clock in the evening
Anglican Church
Bethungra

went to see Dan Boyd's 'Lets stay together' at Uplands. I wanna name droppppp that I went to art school with the good guy - just to say that I wish him all the best cause I am about to say maybe mean stuff, or just make some awkward notes, I got reminded lately that maybe I need say that my 'tude comes from sometimes knowing someones work over a long time. Perhaps this isn't fair game, but I think its important. It's always a hard thing in making work between repeating yourself v's losing the 'thing'. But perhaps seeing similar imagery and allegorys form Dan here isn't even important, this is his introduction to Melbs, so guess there is room to summarise.

Dan's here to stick some Aboriginal history. I recall that Dan finds his white-no beard-pirates pretty funny. But maybe I find it not too funny, or just one funny, not enough funnys, too much of a one liner for a messy mess, but maybe I want to hideout in the multiples in the mess cause I am white as hell. But I don't think my problem with these works is guilt or accusation. I made a work once that said 'I'm white but I'm alright' perhaps not so funny either, but maybe. I wonder if thoughful criticism of 'indigeneous' work is always curbed by doubt or fear.

But I think the saving grace of the show is the exhibition title work, lets stay together. A lion goes to kill a gizelle, spring bok maybe, South African rugby, South Africa, Africa, Lions. It's dark as, with a lttle grin. I think it manages to house an update in race relations. Perhaps 'lets stay together' is what Rudd proposes with his Sorry speech to the stolen generation (I found Rudds speech surprisingly moving, but the stolen generation is just just a little bit of it). Perhaps Dan rekons its a sinister idea, along the lines of 'you want to build a relationship outta this house of cards?!' like a creepy crap boyfriend trying to get you back. I like this work a lot. No more pirates.

'Ikebana holiday'

'Can't you act like old money'

Whoops Kibbutz :

http://www.utopianslumps.org/previous_exhibitions.php?viewShow=18

I'm not denying you Katy Perry - I just think your 'spirit' is wrong.

we were little, but we were doing close. She is so pretty and awkwardly smashing blue stuff onto a fowl mop head in a pus bucket. Isn't that window and not floor cleaner? 'Same shit different bottle', this phrase is now really imporatant to me. She was so pretty, I hadn't noticed how much I had seen it, but I was glad she bought the VB's to seduce me, I was glad we were to young to get into pubs, it was good to stay in the kitchen and drink the cooking vino from the cask and pash. Though weird to drive back to her mums, and sleep in the bunck above her and her boyfriend.

sook sook.
It's surprising that we are friends now, we havn't talked about it then.
I teased your best friend. she had a horrid forrid and I used a fist to mine to show her I'd noticed. Voted school captain, but only aloud to be vice. Or so they said, they said they didn't vote for the other one, mum jumped that it was becasue I wasn't catholic, well she used the word Tike. I thought that word meant Roman Catholic until a few days ago.

I didn't mind, it was more to me to be too bad arse for captain, I only wanted to be Head Girl, cause he got Boy.

When they told us we were chosen I asked 'which one' I meant am I captain or vice? He told me vice. he said it in that way when someone hands you something but hangs onto it for a bit, pulls you in a bit by using your grip on the thing, giving it to you like you kinda don't deserve it, usually there's a lovely "scamp", grin and wink to let you know : by the skin of your teeth and its ok, don't change anyway. but that wasn't here, just the pull in. He was so angry that his schooling had produced kids that loved a brat more than a smart and thoughtful girl who deserved this, I had kinda beat him in his territory. I don't know why I listend to his gesture, but I got the message, I shut up, and have been bored.

Its not always so great if a blog turns into an add for yourself. Yawn. But I like what Helen is up to in this, the invite is too dumb not tho share, and she has kindly included me.

UGLY HERITAGE

> Trevalyan Clay
> Oliver Hextall
> Claudine Kraan
> Kate Smith
> Andy Vervoorst

> OPENS THIS FRIDAY THE 22ND OF AUGUST 6-8PM

> Curated by Helen Johnson
> JOINT HASSLES
> 2A MITCHELL STREET
> NORTHCOTE 3070
> jointhassles.com
> jointhassles@gmail
> 0407891334

broken things work

always a hand painted car parked out side art schools
Whoops Kibbutz is on until june 14

my dumb show 'Whoops Kibbutz' opens friday the 23rd of may at Utopian Slumps.
http://www.utopianslumps.org/

David Noonan. Markus 2008 at Roslyn Oxley 9


'yeah, the surface is quite rough and over the duration of the show I have recently noticed a few edges on the different layers beginning to peel back... i really like this. The other thing is that the show has quite an intense smell about it... not a bad one but obviously the hessian has a particular odour and so it reminds me of something industrial yet rustic or parochial. its very cool. and there is a large carpet rug in the space to sort of give you the idea that the space is enveloped in this theatre of material and prints and performance. quite cool.'
Peta Bryant.

A friend emailed these images to me of Loose Cannon by Dan Moynihan
at Victoria Park Gallery.
Its over now, but it was good.

outsider that old chelsnut

Monash Clayton today for oustsider thing. Good work of cause. Peter Fay and Glen Barkley know their you know. Glen and MCA whooooooo! G and P spoke and that was good, its been done in a historical way and this seems to introduce the oustsider thing well and established, because it is. I was weirded out that this was Melbournes first time to this sought of work, I am not sure I a right in feling this, probably just ill informed, but it was a bit 'that old chestnut' to me. I sought of thought MUMA didn't see it as a history thing as much as the curaters did, it was new territory for them. This kind of work was a big part of the Canberra art school experience, we got Home Sweet Home from Peter Fay's collection at NGA pretty early on. Some of us were like new oustsider artists Peter found in a way. Glen did say that now this outsider show has been completed he feels like moving on and bringing that stuff into galleries on equal footing. Good lets get freaking egalitatrian. Its just a shame that its might take the peps longer to get there, they may have just heard the word Oustsider.

But this doesn't take nothing from some awsome works in the show. Especially John Patrick Mckenzie's poetry.

group show, informal rituals at TCB

Harriet

Elvis

will try to get to Nat Thomas at Until Never Gallery (above misty's). Nat has re-done the fake Rover Thomas' amongst other things. It feels freaking important! and smart cause I think it just might be.      

peter russell clarke

don't worry I keep my diary in myyyyy soullllll

Grace Crowley 1890-1979

'Ena and the Turkeys' 1924
'Absract Painting' 1947

future diet

yellow kibbutz

chrome

I found a chromers plastic bag on the way to the studio today,well I imagined it was, but now I think about it some one had built or fixed it to carry a bit of paint, to chrome from? - plastic bag, the ones you buy, not the ones they give you at the supermarket. I picked it up. It's red down in one corner, kinder smashing up to the exit. they had tied a couple of tiny tidy knots to repair holes.

I think I decided it that was a chrome bag cause a boy got on the tram the other day - smashed out - chromer. paint was comming up and out of the corners of his mouth across his skin, the colour was silver, well chrome. It was beautiful.

Meredith Turnbull has a video in the world end show on at the carlton at the moment - she hangs upside down, her face changed by the gravity, she rocks back and forth revealing a full moon, like a sc fi bat in preparation. I am not sure if she is preparing to save or end the world. I like the thought of Meredith bothering to go out into night to get that moon and risk hanging upside down in the park alone.

Van Newton played at the Un magazine relaunch, I was there with a friend from boarding school and she asked me "so are they a covers band, and why is he wearing sunglasses?" I don't think their bad questions, but how do I answer, how do I start from scratch, cause it's dumb to wear sunglasses? I guess that's what galleries do to explain work, they have to start from scratch, and its usually uncomfortable.

reasons to be hetrosexual:
there is a pack of boys who go to the supermarket on swan street after school, they leave their bags at the door, one is a worn out, used to be green country road bag - they've scribbled over the brand, the zipper is broken and open, and some stuff falls out, it's a cheeky stand out in amongst the other private school crest, latin and maron bags.

cardbord

http://flickr.com/groups/carton/

'From the utterly uncool peaks of some mountain somewhere'

I went to see Sam George's 'From the utterly uncool peaks of some mountain somewhere' at TCB a little while ago and introduced my half asleep dumb arse self again. The just about, penultimate ( i didn't want to use that word but oh well) and disappointed stuff in the title was in the work. Lots of scrunches of paper on the floor/corner that looked denim wash because of some blue bits. Sam said she'd made the work everywhere and not in one place, but all the pieces were the same even sizes, broken down from A4's. Some random sheets and some old essays. This is Sam's first show since art school. I liked that she was using some old essays, it's like a nice let down. burning your books. We talked about about grad show and after art school disappointment - it can feel a bit like a school formal you take years to get ready for and on the night you end up not feeling like yourself and pash none of them. The proposed exhibition was a waist height paper extravaganza, but it didn't happen....... Sam told me that at the TCB opening someone left her a note in the work, something about it being trite.............. yikes, but you know what I agree, cause they are on the right track and its not a negative thing, it suits what I think Sam has been up to. And I guess you have to try and remember that a show is a shrug in a whole practice and it don't have to have it all. http://www.flickr.com/photos/thelanguage

hell opening up.

Helen has made a good desription of Televisiuals at Utopian Slumps by Elvis on her bloggy Triangualr Sun.

assorted contemporary artists' photos

http://www.flickr.com/photos/thelanguage

Elvis Richardson at Utopian Slumps

TELEVISUALS/SALUTEELVIS
Opens Friday 1 Feb at Utopian Slumps. Whoop!

also Michael Ciavarella, Ross Coulter, Deven Marriner and Laith McGregor are in a show called Fuck Your Heroes, opening at West Space the night before, sounds tuff.

looking at art on the internet.

My favourite comment from the Matt Griffin 'hoo haa' on Speech was by Tao, esp the bouncing Joey bit. the Larikin bit. It's so dumb but kinda hits on an australia-australiana bit maybe.
"Perhaps Anon. is instinctively and inarticulately responding to what I found to be a nihilistic aspect to Griffin's humor. Though I don't think this is the right word, in the face of work that provides no answers or solutions, no easy outs, the happy go lucky Joey will bounce him self silly and really get quite upset with all the hoo haa" Tao, Speech Review, Nov 5 2007.

Just re-read an Art Life comment on Fergus Binns at Chalkhorse, Feb 2007. I', kinda likng this cringe stuff, the cringe of something really local. When your tummy flips when Binns uses green and gold. Nadine Christensen's works Prospector and Crops on Mars, both 2007, get Aussie too. Prospector with its mirror Rozellas and farm art rustica sculpture and Crops on Mars, swings + Blue Heeler. Bringing home, but not quite, what I always saw as an Grand Canyon kinda place, a generic movie space, even that knocked out pastel pallete seemed kinda international school of painting maybe (term being used about, not even ure how to apply it?) . Well in these ones with the Australia the colour just sems high noon instead.

So if you stop and think Australia + picture = you get this swanston street souviner stuff. I saw a Countdown rerun on Rage the other night from 1982. It had The Gonna Band do Solid Rock in from of a Uluru backdrop, which I guess was Ayers Rock at then. They sung it ominous and warning. Then Kate Bush did Aborigine (?) Is how she sings it a rip off of an Australian accent? She dances at dawn with idigenious dancers, not so typical moves, there is lasers an outta space in the 80's too. So I guess Austrliana was big in the 80's. We have just had that whole fowl 80's things, so I guess it roles up naturally that kidz now tote bags from those Swanston St shops, hell I want one, and Ken Done, despite that listing in the top 3 worst on the art life - is gaining shaking ground - they didn't really want to slam him. Ken's been a bit of a Canberra favourite for a while. Unlike the artlife I would like to wear Done toggs and bed under Ken Doonas, that what its good at, I even had a calander at that was good at other stuff.

So anyway the cringe is good and not just ironic I hope. Trevs doing that uncomfortable aboriginal thing a bit. We have a recent RMIT graduate just moved into the studio and she is going hammer and tongs at the swanston street rip off of 'the dot', who owns the dot? ouch! Tim Price did some works last year calling the crass paintaings, pronounced like grass, Tim does this buyiny the newspaper each day, painting a pic from it, last year he was intervening, a noose might tether Howard on that fucking morning walk etc. So anyway the cringe is good and not just ironic I hope.

http://www.autoblog.com/2006/04/21/tgif-video-oh-deere-its-combine-racing/

today whatever, painty painty

pipes

preparation 500, the vortex and mums garden

Modern Britain and the NGV is a good show. The grot and even the gesture is pretty refreshing, kinda links into my pet topic at the moment, the post war time, when platis was inventended and an exciting prospect from a great new future maybe. Unlike it is now, the default bad guy ruining our precious future. The house at mums n dads was built in the Modern Britain times, when they ripped up some out lino they found some Womens Weekleys that had been used as lining, there was a great article in one talking about this amazing invention called plastic. Now we are banning the bag.
Replay Marclay finishes up on the third of Feb. Its been nice to have it around as a reminder to make art about what you love and stuff it. Marclay loves music/sound and thats enough. Its funny how dated the tricks seem, but tat kinda cool, its becomming history.

Jess welcome back and thanks for the gifts

shreddy christmas

So the galleries are closed and only the big ones open, its been an olden days / family time latley. Modern Britain at the NGV is really good. But I might write about that another time.

Our christmas tree from the last couple of years has been this thing made out of barbed wire, good bit of farm art rustica from mum, the star though, is a star of David, made out of barbed wire, do you see what I mean, that's not quite right. Mum doesn't know what she's done. My brother kinda gaps at it, cracks a few jew jokes, mum reminds us that our great grandad was called hezakia, ( spelling) we look at dads nose, oh dear, its all pretty bad really. But that's what happens there, stuff just gets jammed up wrong and all together despite the best intentions.

I do like christmas at home though, I like that there are only 5 people and not lots of presents. My brother and I speed wrapped, we usually try and do something dumb with the wrapping, making it really hard to get into, elctrical tape is pretty good! this year it was doing it and getting them to the tree as fast as possible, its silly and sought of undermines the whole thing and It's a bit of luxury to wrap nice stuff like crap.

So a garden shredder was a big hit this year, Dad got a saw too, so he and Jock went a bit nuts sawing bits off trees just to put them through the shreddy, even the shredder packaging got a go, shredded cardboard looks pretty good might try and use it sometime.